Feral Pain

the summer's moon brings pain and torture to the shape-shifter's flesh. Hovering into the darkness in a cove and backed into the corner, she lies writhing and clawing at her tissue as it defies reason and humanity. Beside her lies her kit whimpering endlessly just under the noise and growls of its mother's own tormented wails. The poor babe is in pain as she witnesses her mother's plight and feels the gravity pull at her bones and teeth instructing them to bend to its will. They are feral...in the night.

Life is short for these two but not without its rewards of the flesh and mind. They keep ever so innocuous but right in plain sight and not once has anyone outed them for the vile beasts they would be labeled. Shelter is taken at the first sign of distress, of pain. No mites or alien substances, just the defiant cells that define and foretell their truth, their inhumanity. It is painful this night. The older beast clawing and gnashing and bringing blood to the surface. Her kit howls again and she can only growl back in what appears to be anger, but the kit knows all to well as understanding and guilt. She brought her pup to this existence and her heart fills with sadness knowing the life of pain that awaits her legacy. Her kind seek solace in these days, but as a mother she will stay with her young and accept her guilt and ride out the storm together so that her child will return the cycle with her own progeny.

It hurts so bad and the itching as the skin heals over and over is enough to drive her mad. She is tired, exhausted and weary from her ministrations to keep her wounds clean. Other lesser beasts appear to lick and clean her wounds but she bats at them between toothy rips into her own hide and then finally with her last bit of strength allows them to nurse her wounds. Her life's blood spills more for her own immortal betrayal than for the joust of another. Another pain stabs her head and she rubs furiously at the rock to make it stop and banging her head so loudly that with each thud her child cries, silently watching. Both have been sick as it is unseasonably warm for this time of year. Both have been poisoned by the very star they were born under and now their bowels have become a steaming cesspool of agony with nothing in them to bear. Food won't stay down at this time and nor will drink. They crave and starve in the silent sleep of absolute tiredness. They hunger and anger for the loss of meals and suffer should they defy what their bodies tell them and sup out of sync. They will starve and be near death before the torment lets up only to be renewed and wholesome and peaceful and graceful once again. These days are hell and no man, beast or bird will wish it upon their worst enemies. No thing will look upon them and not weep for them. They are damned, not of the soul but of the past and the curse played out in the bones of their ancestors. Tonight they die to be born again when the full moon wanes. Not human, not wolven and not wamphyric but a perverse combination of the three and regal above most all others they scent. Only now they resemble lowly peasants afflicted with plague and pestilence for some mythos-related abject crimes of their forefathers. Tonight their crowns are thorns and their robes are the tattered skin of their own punishment, for no one can punish them more than their own will does to them each and every four weeks. It is sad to see the mighty fallen to their knees and the invisible force mocking them and making them tear at themselves to escape the torment. To look upon their own grimace in a pool of water is to stare into the mad psyche of purgatory and the traumatic effects.

I wish this on no one. I wish it was me to tear the flesh of the inhumane who would mock these two. I wish to taste their blood and feel their life slipping between my teeth as I squeeze their futures from them. I wish to be free from this curse and to feel like I have a home, somewhere, with others. Only now....I lie in my dark cove in the back corner clawing deep gashes into my form and scratching my eyes and banging my head upon the rock where my forefathers may once have...and I see her, crying in her sleep and grasping her maw and rubbing her gums to soothe the bones pushing through. I weep in one final breathe before falling fast asleep, upon the wrong hour, vulnerable to the hunter of mine and dreaming of a prince who will be my king and the crown I have misplaced...~mobe's love to her all and her all to her loves.